Without freedom from the past there is no freedom at
all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent.
It is only the
fresh, innocent mind that is free.
Freedom has nothing to do with age,
it has nothing to do with experience; and it seems to me that the very
essence of freedom lies in understanding the whole mechanism of habit,
both conscious and unconscious.
It is not a question of ending habit,
but of seeing totally the structure of habit.
You have to observe how
habits are formed and how, by denying or resisting one habit, another
habit is created.
What matters is to be totally conscious of habit; for
then, as you will see for yourself there is no longer the formation of
habit.
To resist habit, to fight it, to deny it, only gives continuity
to habit.
When you fight a particular habit you give life to that habit,
and then the very fighting of it becomes a further habit.
But if you
are simply aware of the whole structure of habit without resistance,
then you will find there is freedom from habit, and in that freedom a
new thing takes place.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti -
